Greetings Colleagues,
Because the January and February MRAM meetings were canceled, we want to provide updates on key activities within Grant & Contract Accounting.
GCA Process Updates
At the beginning of January, we hired five additional staff who are focused on reducing the backlog of SAGE Modification Requests, increasing our Award Setup Team by 46%. As a result, unprocessed SAGE Modification Requests have decreased by 44% since the beginning of January. Advance Requests and Award Setup Requests have steadily increased during that time so we are cross-training staff to increase the number of people who can complete those items.
Our Reporting backlog held steady at around 546 financial reports. To address this backlog, three additional FTE have been added to the Reporting Team, two brand new to GCA and one from another GCA Team. We have also transitioned a Grant Manager to the team to assist with review and training. Additionally, we have automated the SF-425 Federal Financial Report and the University’s standard report (UW ROE). These improvements will help reduce the time it takes to complete each report and will help us eliminate the backlog. In the meantime, if a sponsor has reached out to you regarding a past due financial report, please submit an email to gcahelp@uw.edu so we can review and prioritize the financial report.
Our Closing backlog has increased steadily since Workday Go-Live last July as we have focused resources on other, more high risk GCA processes. Due to the consistently high volumes in Award Setup, Reporting and Invoicing, we will continue to pause Closing activities and revisit Closing in April 2024. In the interim, we are processing urgent sponsor refunds. Please email gcahelp@uw.edu if you need a sponsor refund processed.
Known Issues
We have updated our Known Issues webpage with several newly identified issues, added more detailed statuses, and an Expected Resolution Date. The webpage is updated weekly.
Web Updates
We have updated our Award Setup Volumes webpage to include workload volumes from our Reporting and Closing processes. We are developing metrics for our Invoicing process and will post them when they are available. Please visit the Workload Volumes by GCA Process webpage for weekly updates.
We have received questions about what GCA needs to see in a SAGE Budget in order to process an ASR or a MOD. We created a new Frequently Asked Question about what GCA needs in a SAGE Budget worksheet.
We created a new webpage called GCA Videos where you can find recorded content for some of our key processes. Currently, there are four videos about how GCA creates awards in Workday for several common types of sponsored programs.
Reminders
Award Setup Reminder: Wait Until ASR or MOD is Processed
We have received emails from campus units about actions taken or notes added to Award Setup Requests (ASR) and Modification Requests (MOD) before the item is fully processed. Please wait until the ASR or MOD is in Processed status before reviewing the award in Workday and contacting GCA. To contact us, please email gcahelp@uw.edu, not the individual listed in SAGE.
Award Setup Reminder: Check Your Returned ASRs and MODs
We have a high volume of SAGE Award Setup Requests and Modifications Requests that have been returned to campus units that have not been resubmitted to GCA. Please review your SAGE Awards tasklist for returned items and take the action requested and resubmit to GCA or add a comment to the item to let us know that it is no longer needed and resubmit the item. If the item is no longer needed, GCA will deny the request at that time. GCA has begun posting a list of returned items to the GCA Workload Volumes webpage for easy reference.
Thank you,
Juan Lepez, Director
Grant & Contract Accounting
Sponsored Programs Finance
Announcement originally sent 2/16/2024